U.N. Aide Assailed in Salvadoran Talks

By CLIFFORD KRAUSS, Special to The New York Times

Published: February 1, 1991

WASHINGTON, Jan. 31—
With a new round of peace talks between El Salvador's guerrillas and Government scheduled to begin in Mexico City on Friday, Administration officials have criticized the United Nations mediator for failing to press the rebels to compromise.

Washington's unhappiness with the mediator, the United Nations Assistant Secretary General Alvaro de Soto, reflects an evolving perception among officials here that the negotiations that began so hopefully in March are now stalled.

United States officials said the immediate stumbling block to end the 11-year conflict was a demand by the guerrillas to dissolve the Salvadoran Army, a demand they asserted Mr. de Soto should have dismissed out of hand as politically impossible.

"There is a feeling that Mr. de Soto is less than energetic pursuing the peace process," an Administration official said. "He accedes to the guerrillas' delaying tactics." Rebels Talk of Flexibility

The expressions of disapproval came as guerrilla officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said they were ready to show more flexibility in the new round. They said they would offer a new proposal that will call for consideration of total demilitarization in El Salvador after a cease-fire agreement, instead of before such an accord is reached as they previously demanded.

One of the biggest mistakes Mr. de Soto has made, Administration officials said, was accepting the guerrillas' plea to suspend a previous deadline of Sept. 15 to reach a cease-fire. By doing that, they said, Mr. de Soto played into the hands of rebel hard-liners who want to continue the war.

United States officials said they believed the five guerrilla armies in the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front coalition were badly split on how far to compromise with the Government of President Alfredo Cristiani. The Moscow-aligned Salvadoran Communist Party, which supports a settlement that would guarantee the Marxist left a place in democratic elections, is the leading moderate force in the coalition. Leading the recalcitrant wing of the coalition is the Peoples Revolutionary Army, the most militarily powerful and aggressive of the groups.

A senior Administration official said he viewed Mr. de Soto as a well-intentioned man who had made progress on certain fine points of the negotiations. But he said Mr. De Soto did not appear to have a clear strategy of where to take the talks nor how to end the war. 3d Unannounced Session

Other officials said Mr. De Soto had allowed the pace of the talks to slow, from meetings of five days a month from May to September down to only a couple of days a month since October. The two-day session scheduled to begin on Friday is the first time the two sides have met in four weeks.

That will be the third unannounced negotiating session since Mr. de Soto decided last fall that public posturing and propaganda at news conferences were undercutting whatever process had been reached in private.

The United States officials, who all spoke on condition of anonymity, said they had not yet voiced their criticism to Mr. de Soto, nor to the United Nations.

"I don't care to comment on the criticisms," Mr. de Soto said. "The negotiations are on track. Both sides are satisfied that we are getting down to brass tacks." Offensive Hinders Talks

The Government and the guerrillas agreed in May that they would seek to achieve accords involving the dismissal of human-rights abusers in the Salvadoran armed forces, as well as other revisions in election rules, human rights, the judicial system and the Constitution. The United Nations agreed to verify the hoped-for agreements, which would lead to a cease-fire and guerrilla participation in local elections scheduled for March.

The talks appeared to be on course until the rebels called for the complete dissolution of the armed forces in August, a proposal that caused great consternation among conservative officers. Although elected civilians formally lead the Government, the 57,000-member armed forces remain the dominant political force in the country.

The prospects for peace dimmed further in recent months as the guerrillas launched their largest offensive in a year, fortified with sophisticated antiaircraft missiles smuggled from Nicaragua. The Jan. 2 downing of a United States military helicopter, and the alleged executions of two American servicemen who survived the crash led President Bush to free $42.5 million in military aid previously frozen by Congress to protest the slayings of six Jesuit priests.

The United States has spent more than $4 billion in aid to help El Salvador fight a war that has taken more than 75,000 lives since 1979.

Salvador Sanabria, a rebel representative in Washington, defended Mr. de Soto as "one of the most active diplomats" trying to bring peace to his country.

A senior Salvadoran Government official said he thought Mr. de Soto at times misunderstood what he called the guerrillas' hypocritical stalling tactics. Still, he said, "I think this will be the year for peace in El Salvador."

Photo: Alvaro de Soto, Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations, was criticized for stalled negotiations in El Salvador. (United Nations)